Eric Dane Shares Why He Was Fired From Grey’s Anatomy

“I was drunk more often than I was sober…”

Currently in the casting of Bad Boys: Ride or Die, Eric Dane is an old hand in Hollywood. Passed by Charmed or more recently Euphoriathe actor was above all one of the stars of Grey’s Anatomyduring the heyday of medical drama. He played Dr. Mark Sloan (aka McSteamy), before being kicked out by the production… He tells us why today in Dax Shepard’s Armchair Podcast:

“If you take my entire eight years on Grey’s Anatomy, I was drunk more often than I was sober… And that’s when things started to go downhill for me… I think I was definitely sent away!”

Arriving in season 2, Sloan had been killed in the first episodes of season 9, dying from injuries sustained in the famous plane crash in the season 8 finale. Beyond his alcohol addiction, Eric Dane admits that his salary had also become a problem:

“I was starting to become too expensive, like most of these actors who have spent a long time on a series. I was costing the network too much money. And the network knows that the series will continue to run, no matter who stays on it. As long as Grey’s Anatomy is here, everything is fine.”

The actor concludes with a form of mea culpa: “I wasn’t the same guy that was hired eight years earlier either. I understood when they let me go. And Shonda[Rhimes]was really great. She protected us fiercely. She protected us publicly. She protected us privately. But yeah, I probably got fired. Not in a scathing, ‘You’re fired’ way. Just like, ‘You’re not coming back’!”